Last night's events passed peacefully.

I finally put Gan to sleep, but I was no longer sleepy.

After a minute and a second of dawn, he got up and put on his clothes, crept out of the room, and went downstairs to find Duan Ming. Pushing open the door, I saw him sitting at the table in full dress, carefully wiping the blade of the sword with a linen cloth.

"Didn't you sleep?"

"Hmm... You must not have slept well, right? ”

I nodded, walked into the room and sat down beside Duan Ming, looked at a pot of charcoal fire not far away that burned to only white ashes, and then turned to Duan Ming and said, "After such a fuss last night, the relationship between you and me and Gan Lai in the building has become more and more unbearable. For the sake of safety, when Gan comes to wake up after a while, let's send him back as soon as possible. ”

Duan Ming's hand stopped moving, and his mouth was half open for a while, as if he wanted to say something, but seeing that my expression was cold and tired, he still turned thousands of words into a light sigh, and nodded with a gloomy expression.

"Also, in a few days, Aunt Tonghua and Wen Zhao will say goodbye, and I want to leave Kazhou and go all the way south. If there is no more summons from the tail sect, you will still be able to sit in the seat of the Gangfeng Banner Master in my place in the future. ”

"What-" Duan Ming was stunned, "It's so decent, why are you leaving?" ”

"Go find my friends." I replied briefly, "I told you that." ”

"That's... Even so, you can take me with you! Duan Ming concealed the panic in his eyes, "I'm not too useless, I've always been used to walking on the rivers and lakes, and I have a lot of strength with the help of multiple people!" ”

"No," I shook my head slightly, "thanks to what you've taught, I'm now able to take charge of myself and protect myself." ”

"It's your kung fu that has recovered most of it, how sinister the rivers and lakes are, and you can't do it if you don't understand many things!" Duan Ming hurriedly said, "If it was you and I who were in the past, I would have nothing to say, but now that you have lost all your memories, how can I rest assured that you are wandering alone?" ”

"It's okay, I'll restrain my temper from now on and stop rubbing against people." I still spoke in a cold and distant tone, "If you are really not at ease, first take the sword back to Lingguang Mountain to restore your life, and leave the stone python bone to me, if something happens, I can also summon the dead soldiers of Gangfeng Banner to help in time." ”

"You don't even want to bring the sword with you - how can this be done, Gui Hotaru, I think you still have to think clearly again-"

"-I don't want to think about it anymore!" I tried my best to suppress my sadness, but my voice still rose uncontrollably, "Duan Ming, don't you understand? I'm not Wen Ling who has lost her memory, I'm Lian Gui Hotaru! I'm not your flag master, I just want to find my friends who don't know life and death as soon as possible! I'll admit I'm happy with you these days, happy enough to forget all my worries. But you can't imagine what my friends will go through in every carefree day! I really can't live like this messing with Wen Ling's life anymore, if I were her, whatever you two master and apprentice do together would be right. But you see, now that we have only known each other for more than a month, practicing martial arts together and raising Gan Lai together, they have already choreographed us I don't know how ugly it is! ”

"Is it all the gossip in the building?" Duan Ming looked at me sadly and said hurriedly, "If it's because of this, don't worry—I can eliminate all the words you don't like to hear in the Taopin Building within one day." Ji Sarong... You're blaming her for embarrassing you in front of those girls, aren't you? You let me go, let me go and talk to her, I promise that she will never dare to be disrespectful to you again! If you still don't get rid of your hatred, you can give me an order, and I can help you kill her right away—"

"Duan Ming!" I exclaimed and jumped up from the stool, "What are you talking about, you still want to kill people for me!" Do you know how scared I was after I stabbed Xiao Yao to death on the day I left the Hou Mansion! But what makes me despair the most is not that I killed him, but that my body is still so calm when I see his blood on my hands, and I haven't even dreamed of his face once in the middle of the night! Do you know why, because it's not my own body at all! I'm not going to kill someone, and I'm not going to be so at ease after I kill someone! Your Wen Ling may be the best killer of the Tail Sect, but I'm not, I don't want to go back to her bloody life with you, I just want to go home with my friends and return to my own ordinary life, do you understand! ”

"Return to Hotaru... I'm sorry, don't be angry, don't get me wrong, I don't mean anything else, I don't want you to continue killing people like you used to... I know you're different, you're not her anymore. But I'm not just good to you because of her, it's you... It's you...... I didn't expect them to tarnish your innocence like this. I didn't mean to kill anyone, I just wanted you not to be so angry, return to Hotaru ......"

I watched Duan Ming stand up with a red face unconsciously, and kept calling my name out of his mouth. The green light flashed, and the sword was unintentionally opened, and it landed on the table with a crisp sound.

"Where have you been?" I heard a cold, hoarse voice in my throat, and my eyes involuntarily glanced again at the extinct charcoal basin on the side, "You weren't in the room last night, were you?" Where have you been? ”

Duan Ming was stunned, obviously not expecting me to suddenly ask such a sentence.

He hung his head heavily, his face fading from red to an eerie ominous blue. After a long time, he lifted his head, which seemed to weigh tens of millions of pounds, with difficulty, and looked at me with a pair of big crystal eyes full of shame.

"Gui Hotaru, I'm sorry...... I know you suffered a great disgrace last night, and those four men are to blame. Duan Ming's eyes flickered, and a tear fell, "I think you must have hated them so much, you followed them out of Taopin Building last night, and on their way home, you ended them." ”

Like a bucket of ice water pouring straight down from the Heavenly Spirit Cover, I froze in place almost as if my blood was congealing, unable to breathe for a long time. But seeing Duan Ming's pure and gentle face like an angel twisted into a heartbroken look at this moment due to regret and fear, my body once again added an unbearable chill.

"Hotaru, I'm sorry... I didn't think much of it, I forgot for a moment that you were different from the past, I just wanted to be angry with you, can you not blame -"

"You go."

Duan Ming froze, and the sobs on his face seemed to be frozen for a moment. After a long time, he spoke again in disbelief, but his voice was only uncontrollable trembling and despair.

"Return to Hotaru... What did you say? ”

"Take your sword, leave Taopinlou, and don't appear in front of me again."

Duan Ming's mouth was half-open, but his always crystal clear eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of dirt at this moment, so dim that it was unbearable to look at directly.

He didn't cry, but slowly withdrew his gaze and lowered his head after a long silence. I was heartbroken to see him bow slightly to me, and slowly pick up the sword from the table and put it behind his wrist. He took trembling steps and walked past me to the door.

I felt my heart tighten suddenly, and I turned back violently. was about to say something to save him, but he heard his lifeless voice like the cold ash in the charcoal basin faintly come -

"Whether you believe it or not, I really don't think it's all because of Wen Ling." Duan Ming's back was bleak and heart-wrenching, "No matter how many wrong things I have done, Gan Lai is innocent, he is not a person who has anything to do with Wen Ling like me, in this world, he only has you in his heart, his sister Lian." So please, no matter what, take care of him. ”

When the words landed, the back refused to linger and turned away.

I froze in place for a few seconds, and then suddenly pulled out my legs to chase, where was there still a figure of Duan Ming in the courtyard. But Fu Lin was passing by, and when he saw me in a hurry, he suddenly rushed out, and he hurriedly waved at me in disguise of surprise.

I never felt so quiet for no reason.

This yard, this morning, and the world.

As if I was anesthetized, it wasn't until Gan Lai got up and ran downstairs to find Duan Ming's room and asked me where his brother Duan had gone, that my heart finally ached slowly and violently.

Gradually getting busy, the backyard where people come and go, can't accept the fact and cry endlessly... None of this seemed to fill the empty silence in my heart. It was a buzzing sound that was like a crack in the eardrum, a heart-eating silence, and a heart was still tossing and turning and tangled in pain.

Duan Ming is gone, so I naturally have no intention of sending Gan Lai away alone. I sat silently with this child until the afternoon, and then Aunt Hua had to send someone to send me upstairs to meet her.

As I passed through the corridor, I watched from a distance as the door of the East Wing was closed, not as noisy as usual. However, in this situation, I can't arouse the slightest pleasure in my heart. It's that Aunt Hua has already punished and admonished Ji Sarong, that is, there will be no more unbearable rumors about me in the building from now on, Duan Ming is gone, who can I share this sense of victory in winning back a city?

"My son, I was wronged last night, come to Aunt Hua!" When Aunt Hua saw me, she really stretched out her hand and pulled me to her side, with that distressed look on her face, "But those pigs were quite obedient last night, and I didn't hear that they came to make trouble again when I woke up this morning." Oh, too, in the end, it's just a few mischievous goods who don't have any background and furniture, pretending, and they will only do some tricks to bully men and women. ”

Door-to-door trouble, bullying men and women... Now, they're afraid they can't anymore.

"Ling'er, speaking of which, although someone planned last night's incident, but in the end, it really caught your pigtail..."Aunt Hua looked at me and continued, "Aunt looked at me coldly, that young man Su Ri was extremely close to you, what is your relationship?" Even if no one ever stumbles on you in the future, you... Isn't it time to be more careful? ”

"Duan Ming is the deputy flag master of my Tail Sect Gangfeng Banner. We've left this morning, and they'll never see us together again. ”